Category: Current Events

A Panegyric to Donald Trump

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As we wend our way along to the first half-year mark of the Trump administration I feel I must pay tribute to the man.  Over the course of these last few months I have come to know and admire our president for his ability to trigger rage and panic in his opponents.  He has shown the American people that the democrats and the main stream media are in bed together and as dishonest as can be.  His talent for applying intellectual jiu-jitsu to these weasels has been fascinating as well as hilarious.  In the days ahead I think I’ll assemble a greatest hits or top ten list of my favorite Trump Trolls.  Surely near the top of the list (at least up till now) has got to be him firing Comey while he was off-site at a meeting and letting Comey first hear about it on TV.  That was truly classic. Of course, the famous fake news interview is right up there too.  But regardless of whether any particular day includes a top ten item, Trump shows all of us how to negotiate with the leftists.  With a club.  As an example, last week I was on the morning coffee walk with the guys at work and we were discussing the Trump Road Show in the Old World and someone brought up the NATO speech and one of the guys had watched it and he said his favorite part was when Trump said, “I haven’t even mentioned your new headquarters building or how expensive it was.  But I will say it’s extremely nice!”  It sounded like a Chairman of the Board telling the executive committee of a company that he’d noticed them wasting company money.  And we all were nodding our heads in agreement with his comment.  And then I just said what everyone was thinking.  “He’s the best president ever.”  And he is.  Because he’s not a politician, he’s a businessman.  And he’s telling the Congress and the FBI and the NSA and even NATO that they work for us and it’s our money they’re wasting.  And he’s calling the media liars and calling Chuck Schumer a cry-baby and he’s telling the Saudis that Islam has a problem and he’s talking straight to the Israelis and the Palestinians and he even talked to the commie pope.  I’ll bet he told him to mind his own business.

So, this update is just to confirm that not only am I not tired of winning but I think it’s getting close to the point where we need to start talking about putting Donald on Mt. Rushmore.  If he can get the idiots in Congress to give us the tax cut and figure out how to make Obamacare less terminal we should get him his own weekly TV show.  It can replace the silly press conferences that the media losers rig against him every week.  It could be divided between a ten-minute update by Trump on the latest efforts to fix the government and a half hour variety show featuring bathing beauties and country music acts.  Maybe Melania can host some non-feminists discussing family issues that are interesting to women.  I see it as a sort of Hee-Haw State of the Union.  Who knows?  Maybe he can find some comedians to do some non-Trump based parodies.  God knows there’s enough unused material out there on Hillary, Bill and Carlos Danger.

OCF Classic Movie Reviews – Capra Corn – The Films of Frank Capra – Part 1 – It Happened One Night

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Anyone who has watched TV around Christmas has probably seen a Frank Capra movie because every year they play “It’s a Wonderful Life” non-stop for a week straight.  And that’s a really good Capra film.  But Capra made a bunch of good films in his day and some of them are among my favorites.  And my all-time favorite is “It Happened One Night.”  Filmed in 1934, it stars Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in a screwball comedy that wants us to believe that an heiress on the run from her father would meet up accidentally on a bus with a reporter who needs her runaway story to salvage his newspaper career.  Their trek from Florida to New York begins with each despising the other and ends up, of course, with them falling in love.  But of course, the course of true love is never smooth and never was that truer than with this goofy tale.  The key to the success of this movie, for me, is the chemistry between Gable and Colbert.  He is the seemingly self-confident man of the world.  He knows it all and claims to be able to write a book about every skill from how to correctly dunk a doughnut, to how to thumb a ride on the highway.  She starts out as the arrogant little rich girl.  Pretending to need no one’s help and always in charge.  Once they broker a deal to travel together to their mutual interests, they proceed to heckle each other and bicker until they pretty convincingly fall in love.  My wife and I have always thought of this as a pretty much perfect date movie.  It has a little something for both sexes.  Gable gets to strut and brag in his king of the jungle act and Colbert is the sarcastic little woman.  In one of my favorite scenes Gable is demonstrating his various “foolproof” methods of thumbing a ride.  After a string of failures, he dejectedly admits maybe he shouldn’t write that book after all.  Colbert says she’ll get a ride and won’t even have to use her thumb at all.  Of course, she walks over to the rod, lifts her skirt above her knee and the first passing car slams on the brakes and the emergency brake too.  An amused Colbert says to the glum Gable that she had just answered an age-old riddle.  He asks what and she replies “that the limb is mightier than the thumb.”  And he viciously replies “well why didn’t you just take off all your clothes and you could have gotten a hundred rides?” to which she serenely replies “when we need a hundred rides I will.”

As I mentioned earlier, the couple don’t smoothly move from reluctant partners to sweethearts without obstacles and by the last reel misunderstanding and anger almost conspire to destroy this match made on a Greyhound Bus.  But of course, happily ever after is bound to be in a Capra film so the fear of tragedy is never serious.

The movie is full of little details of life in depression era America and the vignettes with the denizens of the bus and other locales add charm to the story.  Capra filled his depression era movies with scenes of the common people displaying compassion and camaraderie in the face of adversity.  The scene where the bus riders amuse themselves with a relatively untalented singing performance is amusing and appealing if a little contrived.

If you’ve never seen the movie, I unreservedly recommend it.  If you don’t like it then I recommend you do not read any more of my reviews.  Our points of view on film would be just too far out of synch to allow any value to you.  And may God have mercy on your poor shriveled soul.

Plug for Roger Kimball’s article “The Delusional Press for Power of the Anti-Trump Crowd.”

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Just a quick recommendation and a link on an article on the website American Greatness. Roger Kimball wrote a piece called “The Delusional Press for Power of the Anti-Trump Crowd.”  I think it’s pretty great.  I’ll start out by saying that I laughed when I saw the picture at the top of the story was the peasants with pitchforks scene from the original Frankenstein movie.  That was priceless.  He analyzes what the media is doing and why.  I won’t paraphrase or belabor it.  I’ll just highly recommend it.

Ray Bradbury – An American Original – Part 1 – Dandelion Wine

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When I was a kid back in the third quarter of the twentieth century I came upon science fiction in the children’s section of the Brooklyn Public Library.  And so I read Heinlein’s and Asimov’s juvenile sf stories.  As I got a little older I was able to borrow from the adult collection and soon discovered all the golden age authors and some of the newer, edgier writers.  But at a certain point I discovered Ray Bradbury.  I remember he had two collections called R is for Rocket, S is for Space.  But when I read them I found out he wasn’t writing space opera.  In fact, some of his stories didn’t seem to be science fiction at all.  At the time, I didn’t know what fantasy was.  They just seemed to be strange stories.  Later on, I found some of his stories showing up on “The Twilight Zone” TV series and this helped me categorize them as something weird and fun.  But whatever I called him Bradbury was different from the other writers I knew.  Each of his stories had to be evaluated on the merits.  Some of his stories lacked fantasy plot elements and at the time these stories seemed lacking in interest.  Others were almost horror stories and these kept my attention best.  Even his most externally identifiable science fiction stories, “The Martian Chronicles,” didn’t feel like other science fiction stories.  Even if there were ray guns and aliens and space ships it didn’t seem as if these were the point of the story.  They were more like parables or morality tales.  And to a kid this was perplexing.  But I always considered Bradbury as something worth reading.  He was high value.

Fast forward twenty years.  It was the late nineteen eighties.  I was in an old used bookstore in Boston during my lunch hour from a design engineering job I had.  I hadn’t read any science fiction in a while.  I was browsing through a pile of books that had been displayed earlier in the year as summer reading.  There was a used hard cover book with a mylar library-type jacket cover on and a cover painting of a little blond haired boy virtually covering the pavement with his chalk drawings of lines and shapes.  The book was called “Dandelion Wine” and the author was Ray Bradbury.  It was a novel length book and it surprised me because I didn’t remember Bradbury writing many novels.  At the time “Fahrenheit 451” was the only one I could think of.

On a lark, I bought it.  I put it on my bookshelf and figured I’d get to it when the project I was on slowed down.  Well I forgot all about that book and before that project slowed down I had changed jobs and was too busy for reading.  It was about nine months later in July, when I picked it up again.  I was going on vacation with my wife and kids to Old Orchard Beach, Maine for a week.  It’s a very working class old beach resort where middle class people go to sit by the ocean and let their kids dig sand castles and swim.  And later on, you can go down to the pier and buy bad pizza and ice cream for your kids and let them get fake tattoos or go down to the amusement park and watch them be centrifuged in the dozen or so kinetic devices that are used to extract dollars from parents and regurgitated food from kids’ stomachs.  The several years I brought my young family there are among the happiest memories I have.

Anyway, when the family settled in the beach house at night and the kids settled down to reading or watching the TV I picked up Dandelion Wine.  And I was surprised to find I had already read it.  But wait, not really, I’d read parts of it.  What Bradbury had done was patch together a number of his older stories along with transition scenes that tied them together, and make a narrative about a summer for a boy and his family and neighbors in Green Town, USA circa 1928.  What it really was, was an ode to the boyhood Ray Bradbury had lived and imagined in Waukegan, Illinois.  He used the memories of his childhood home and passed them through the story writing algorithm in his head and invented a world that struck me as remarkable.  Here were the mundane short stories that as a kid didn’t click with me because there were no monsters or space ships.  Now they were knitted together to talk about what was magical about being a twelve-year-old boy in a small mid-western town in the early twentieth century with three months of summer vacation ahead of you.  They are stories about family and friends and growing up and living and getting old and even dying.  And they are mostly about being a kid.

Since that summer I’ve re-read that book a dozen times in whole or part.  I mostly read it when I have some vacation time in summer.  This year I’ll be sixty.  When I read that book I’m not even sixteen, I’m twelve.  It’s remarkable.  I didn’t grow up in a small town.  I grew up on the relatively mean streets of Brooklyn, NY.  And I was born forty years after him.  But I can understand what he’s saying and feeling in his alter ego character.  He’s captured the essence of boyhood in its quintessential form, summer freedom.  And the setting is a simpler time and place.  It’s idyllic.  Not realistic but almost archetypal.

I imagine there are many for whom this type of story has no appeal.  It’s not high adventure or technical fun.  But if any of this strikes a chord try the book out.

We Interrupt This Crisis to Go On With Our Actual Lives

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Boy I’m glad I don’t have to watch or read the MSM.  I get a small dose reading my right wing news sources.  They can’t help but report on the big story, i.e., the MSM’s steadily increasing meltdown.  I guess I could consider it entertainment if it weren’t so repetitive.  I mean, how many times can talking heads speculate on how soon Trump will be impeached?

Sure, I know.  No one benefits more than me from mocking the 24/7 outrage machine.  The Trump one act plays are a staple of my blog here and provide me with many chuckles.  But even I know when it’s too much of a good thing.  So I’ll be pacing myself on this day to day drum beating.  And of course if they hand me any comedy gold on a platter, well, who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?

But my intent is to mix up the output between book and movie reviews, photography articles and general interest posts.  And that’s all for the good.  Part of the strategy of the left is to keep up a steady barrage of bad news to destroy morale.  If you can break away from that monotonous shrieking and enjoy something normal and even wholesome from time to time it recharges the batteries and defeats their intent.

However, what I define as general interest can be considered odd.  But that’s just how it goes.  And, of course, general interest includes anything that impacts the culture war.  So I won’t always be ignoring the left wing nitwits.  I just may be looking away from the front page when selecting a topic of interest.  And now that actual warm weather is occurring over most of the country (but not you Colorado, you’ve been bad) things like baseball and barbecues could even enter into my musings.  For the first time in quite a while the Yankees are looking like a healthy and even exciting team.  For someone who has to deal with Red Sox fans on a more or less daily basis, that can be a very gratifying situation.  I’ve always thought that the Donald had a lot in common with George Steinbrenner, the late owner of the Yankees.  Both were bigger than life showmen who demanded success from those around them.  Steinbrenner was hysterically parodied by Larry David on the Seinfeld television comedy and I sort of take that as my example on how to handle the Trump character in my comic portrayals.

I’ve been gratified of late to see a few commenters on the blog and I definitely encourage anyone who has an opinion to express it (within the bounds of politeness of course).  I’m also looking to add some guest posters soon.  I have another photographer who has already said he’d provide some landscape stuff and I have a young reviewer that I’ll use to provide a fresh perspective on some of the young adult books that are out there.

So things are looking up here at OCF and let’s hope that the next time the MSM is talking about the Donald it’s to announce that they’re throwing in the towel (yeah right!).

The Father of History / The Father of Lies / Summer Reading Fun!

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My Professor of Ionic Greek was a very funny guy.  He said that the charm of reading Herodotus is that his prose reminds you of your Great Aunt telling family history.  The whole story is one big run-on sentence meandering back and forth and including everything from news of the great war to gossip about somebody’s wife cheating with the milkman.  And sometimes it’s difficult to tell which part she feels is more important.

In the same way, Herodotus starts off the history of the Persian War by claiming its origin was the kidnapping of Helen by the Trojans!  From there we get a family history of the first Asian ruler to conquer the Greeks living in Asia Minor.  Apparently, the origin of this dynasty involves a King allowing his wife to be seen naked by a commoner.  This triggers his wife’s anger so severely that she conspires with the commoner to kill her husband and usurp the throne.  All of these stories are given with either a tongue in cheek or a storyteller’s desire to be complete.

But in between all this chatter you get some stories that are told nowhere else and that record the (mostly) accurate exploits of the ancient world’s greatest generation.  You’ll hear about Marathon and Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea.  You’ll meet Leonidas and the Spartans, Themistocles and the Athenians and Xerxes and the Persians.  And mixed in with that you’ll hear unlikely stories of the origins of historical nations based on the amorous adventures of Heracles and other demigods.  And you’ll feel that you’re in the midst of a tumultuous time full of heroes and villains.  And you’ll discover the ancient dichotomy of the East vs. the West.  It’s freedom versus slavery.  It’s nation versus empire.  It’s intelligence versus brute force.

There are places where the story bogs down.  You see Herodotus was a world traveler and he relates all the tales he was told in his various travels.  During his time in Egypt he collected much material on the rulers and doings in Egypt.  Sometimes it gets to be a little much.  But mixed in with this minutia will be stories that sound like they came out of the Tales of the Arabian Nights.

In terms of historical accuracy Herodotus was far inferior to his successor at Athens, Thucydides.  His history chronicles the aftermath of the Persian War.  This was a sort of Cold War between Athens and Sparta that eventually went hot.  Thucydides provides precise details of the military and political actions and forgoes all mythical and religious causes.  But the content is basically the story of Athens committing suicide.  I much prefer reading the story of its finest hour.

Every summer I read from two greek classics.  I read the Odyssey and I browse Herodotus.  Those two books give me hope that the legacy of the West isn’t a myth.  Odysseus tells me that the value of the brave man and the faithful wife can overcome the chaos and nihilism of the world.  And Herodotus tells me that freedom reappears in this world from time to time and that it is the most valuable substance in the universe.

In future installments, I’ll select some of the stories that I think make the case that the gossip Herodotus is still relevant and interesting 2,400 years later.

OCF Classic Movie Reviews: The Caine Mutiny

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As our first official classic movie review, I’ve picked a beaut.  “The Caine Mutiny” is a World War Two movie made nine years after the war had ended.  It is an adaption of Herman Wouk’s novel and stage play.  This movie has a cast that included star, Humphrey Bogart, veteran actors like Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray and Jose Ferrer along with character actors like Lee Marvin and Claude Akins.  It follows the crew of the USS Caine, a minesweeper under the command of a very difficult captain, Philip Francis Queeg played by Bogart.  A series of incidents convinces the officers that Queeg is a dangerously paranoid lunatic.  It all comes to a head during a typhoon when the officers relieve Queeg of command.  This sets up the finale of the movie, a court martial of the officers who mutinied against their captain.  Jose Ferrer portrays the defense counsel and his part is a tour de force.  He dominates the end of the movie and resolves the conflicting faults of the main characters by identifying “the true author of the Caine Mutiny” and placing blame where it was deserved.  All of the veteran actors perform admirably with Fred MacMurray being especially notable for his character portrayal against type.  There is one weak aspect to the movie.  One of the primary strands of the plot is the story of young Ensign Willis Seward “Willie” Keith played by neophyte actor Robert Francis.  A love story between Keith and his girl at home, May Wynn, is woven into the plot.  In my opinion it is a weak element and a distraction.  Some of the stronger elements involve humor stemming from the crew’s experience of Queeg’s erratic behavior.  But for all of his extreme behavior, Bogart comes off as a strangely sympathetic character and the lack of a truly heroic character seems fitting and realistic.  I think Wouk was capturing the actual experience of war.  The fear and uncertainty that even the sane individuals felt humanizes the behavior of someone like Queeg.  I think it will strike a chord for many people who have had to work together under crisis conditions.

Who will like this movie?  I guess folks who like court room dramas are likely candidates.  Even though it’s a WW II movie and mostly takes place on a war ship it’s not really a war movie.  But it is about navy men and it does reflect the time when it took place.  One interesting historical detail is the social reality of the place of black sailors in the US Navy of the time.  The mess-boys are the cooks and all of them are young black men.  They have an important plot element and I’m sure if Alec Baldwin and Dave Letterman ever review this movie on TCM they’ll denounce the rabid racism of the United States and the military then, now and forever.  Luckily for all of you I just think it’s an interesting footnote on a different time.

In conclusion, to quote from Captain Queeg, the Caine Mutiny can be counted among “the greatest, I kid you not.”

Filling in the Gaps

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The network tv season has just about reached its conclusion.  Summer re-run season is upon us and in a meaningful way it no longer matters at all.  I am effectively down to one show (“The Middle”) that I truthfully consider entertaining.  It’s been about two years since “The Big Bang Theory” was funny.  “Last Man Standing” which used to add a tiny amount of right wing commentary in with the family sit-com formula had a comatose season that telegraphed the news that this season would be its last.  “Kevin Can Wait” is a pale shadow of how funny “King of Queens” sometimes was and nothing else on the tube even mildly interests me.  So, I’ve finally had to face it.  There is no reason to watch network television anymore.  Cable is slightly more promising.  There are a few series that I hear are entertaining.  I’ve been watching earlier seasons of Silicon Valley and it is funny but hardly worth paying for HBO.  I can probably stream whatever I want on Amazon or Netflix or Hulu or blah, blah, blah.  So, I can probably also join the ranks of those who have cut the cable and use the internet as their data and entertainment umbilicus.  But for me that’s weird.

The baby boomers were raised by the boob tube.  It seemed like it was always on.  It was the background music to our lives.  ABC, NBC and CBS were our babysitters, our teachers, our neighbors and in a strange way our friends.  We sort of depended on them to tell us what cars were cool, what other kids were wearing and what music we should listen to.  Now I guess that has been replaced by the ubiquitous cell phone link to you-tube and facebook and whatever is trending on Twitter.  Well, I don’t do cell phone, but I guess the internet on my laptop is the equivalent.  So now I amuse myself with that.  But it’s not the same.  Sure, I’ve replaced the network news with a handful of blogs and news aggregators.  And I search for reviews of movies and cable shows and books on the right-wing blogs and for the most part I can find what I want but something is missing.

In the 1990s I went to work and could talk to coworkers and find out about shows like Seinfeld and Home Improvement and it felt like we all shared a similar perspective on the humor or the take on current events.  The writers of the shows reflected the common culture and the sensibilities of the country at large.  That’s completely gone.  We are fractured and alienated from each other to such an extent that it almost isn’t meaningful to talk about one country as existing anymore.  I guess we are at least two peoples.  And unfortunately, the group I’m in doesn’t have a media.  We have the rudiments of one.  But it’s much harder to make it work effectively and it doesn’t feel as seamless and comforting as the old one was.

So, this post is just me thinking out loud and reflecting on where we are.  I can remember one day during the Iraq War driving home from work and listening to NPR on the car radio.  The slanted and dishonest reporting was so unbearable that I vowed never to listen to another show of any kind on Public Radio or television.  And just saying it felt good.  But it was the beginning of a long process to identify alternate sources and structures to patronize and support.  I buy my fiction from sources that do not force a leftist narrative on their authors.  I never click on a news article from the NY Times or the Washington Post or Politico or any of the other leftist mouthpieces.  I never watch a Colbert or a Jon Stewart routine.  I don’t go to or rent a movie with a leftist slant or agenda.  I support politicians who vote for the things I want.  I sent a substantial check to Donald Trump during his campaign.  I only support charities and organizations that reflect my values.  I fill in the gaps around the places where the cancer had to be excised.

And I write this blog.  I give my opinions and I spread the word on any people or sites that I think are right wing and useful.  And I try to entertain and give encouragement.

So where are we?  At the beginning.  Is it good enough? No, but it’s a beginning.

Trump vs The F.B.I.

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Scene 1 (White House, Oval Office)

President Trump (PT) – Look Jeff, I’m glad that Comey is finally out of there but you’ve got to clean out that nest of bozos over there right away.  I’ve got to have the FBI doing some real work.  Between the narcotraficantes and the street gangs Americans are losing faith in the government.

Jeff Sessions (JS) – Mr. President, we’re firing and reorganizing as quickly as we can but there are just so many Obama plants in the FBI that it’s like trying to swat a cloud of mosquitoes.  You’re still gonna get bit.

PT – That bad?  How many useful agents are there?

JS – I’d say about 40%.  And there’s just no easy way to segregate the good from the bad effectively enough to control the problems.  When we restrict the classified clearance of the known bad actors they jump on someone else’s computer and steal info off the database when they get a chance.  And how can you stop that?  It’s hard to tell one guy in a cheap suit and a bad haircut from another.

PT – Never disparage a guy in a cheap suit and a bad haircut.  He could be the next Commander in Chief.

JS – No offense intended sir.

PT – And none perceived.

JS – Exactly.

PT – Well, Jeff, something’s gotta give.  I’ll discuss this with my highest counsel and get back to you.

JS – Ivanka?

PT – No, Schmoopy.

Scene 2 (White House, West Wing)

PT – Hello Schmoopy.

Melania Trump (MT) – Hello Schmoopy.  Why do you have on the sad face?

PT – Because the FBI is full of bozos.

MT – Schmoopy, what is the bozos?

PT – A bozo is a clown.

MT – But the bozos should make you smile and laugh.  Do they wear the funny face and the big shoes?

PT – No they wear the cheap suit and the bad haircut.

MT – Well that is the problem.  I never laugh at the cheap suit and the bad haircut.  It is not funny but very sad.  Why do you not make them wear the bozo suit?

PT – Because no one would put up with that.  He’d quit first.

MT – Would that be so bad.

PT – No Schmoopy.  That would be kinda good.  Thanks.

MT – That reminds me, I’ve got to bring in the tailor and the barber for you.  We must look our best Schmoopy.

 

Scene 3 (FBI Headquarters – Jeff Sessions addressing the Executive Leadership of the FBI divisions)

JS – President Trump has formulated a strategy to streamline and optimize the reorganization of the Bureau.  Effective immediately the organization will be divided into two groupings.  The new division will start out essentially empty.  It will contain a new director whom I will select and an administrative staff. This division will be augmented by any of the existing personnel of the Bureau who can be reliably vetted as effective agents.  This new division will be designated the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Agent Smith (AG) – Mr. Sessions, won’t the other division still be called the FBI.

JS – Yes, it will in fact be called the FBI.  This older grouping will start out with all the personnel of the current Bureau.  It will be up to the rank and file to facilitate their transfer to the new organization.  They can do this by telling us where the “bodies are buried.”

AG – Why exactly would we want to leave our present positions?  We have a pretty good organization and we like the way things are done now.

JS – Well, there are some changes coming down the pike.  For one we’re changing the dress code.  Here is a visual on the standard attire that will be expected starting Monday.  Of course, some variation will be accommodated for gender and ethnic considerations but essentially this is your new look.

AG – Sir, that’s a photo of Bozo the Clown.

JS – Yes, the beloved Icon of the 1960s and ‘70s.  You all will don the face paint, big red squeaky nose, orange hair tufts, size twenty shoes and colorful puffy jumpsuit of Bozo.  This will incentivize you to consider helping us clean out the rat’s nest of Obama bitter clingers and fifth columnists.  Also, it will allow us to easily monitor your proximity around sensitive information and systems.  Standard operating procedure will be to check for clowns before leaving your work station unattended even for a second.  And on your official government identification badge will be emblazoned your new department name FBI – Feckless Bozos of Imbecility.

AG – You paint a vivid picture Mr. Sessions.

JS – We want to make this decision as clear as we possibly can.  You will stay in your present structure under the new arrangement.  You will be assigned duties that include Saturday Morning Children’s Television and outreach to pediatric hospital wards.  Classes in juggling and seltzer squirting marksmanship will be mandatory.  This will go on until either:

  • You show us you can work for the country instead of against it.
  • We find out you were involved in the leaks.
  • You resign.

AG – Go to hell Sessions.

JS – Ah, ah ah!  That’s a Bozo no-no!

The Shrieking Calliope of Rage

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I think Steampunk exists because the steam powered devices of the 19th century were so impressive to the senses.  A steam locomotive fairly writhed with barely latent explosive potential.  Even the safety relief valves that prevented the whole thing from rupturing into a multi-ton shrapnel device assaulted your ears with a screeching shriek that hardly spoke to any sane person’s mind of safety or relief.  This impressiveness transfers well to the written page.  A good writer can weave a word image of the sights and sounds and the feel of the vibrations and even the taste and smell of steam coming off one of these mechanical monsters.  Off the top of my head, I can think of two examples from imaginative works.  The first is the Calliope and Carousel from Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes.”  The other is in the final scene in the boiler room from King’s “The Shining.”  In both cases the steam powered engine is almost an entity in itself.  A manic energy emanates from it and powers the action of the scene and drives the protagonist to attempt to disarm the menace of his shrieking foe.

So, where am I going with this? Oh come on, you know me by now.  The hissing, sputtering, shrieking machine that threatens at any minute to explode from apoplectic rage is the MSM and its faithful audience.  In the last week or so we have had any number of the usual suspects screaming, crying, cussing and threatening disaster over every and any action of the Administration.  In some ways it is impressive.  To keep up a hissy fit this long is no mean feat.  Some of these individuals are not young and so you’d think the risk of stroke is not negligible.  I’d say the most noteworthy instances to list were Stephen Colbert and Maxine Waters.  Colbert had a meltdown over Trump disrespecting a CBS reporter named Dickerson.  Colbert went into a rant against Trump and used some extremely derogatory sexual comments that even partisans of the left found offensive.  Following that a few days later, he extemporized to his studio audience on the breaking news of FBI Director Comey’s firing and was chagrined when the crowd cheered the news.  He claimed it was the result of a pro-Trump audience.  More likely, his constant attacks on Comey for harming Hillary’s election chances temporarily confused the audience into forgetting that we’ve always been at war with Eastasia.  I’m sure he straightened them out on that right away.

Waters took the Comey firing as the one hundredth excuse, to once again, call for the immediate impeachment of Donald Trump. When asked if she would have supported Hillary Clinton firing Comey she said she definitely would.  Wow.

In the olden days B.T. (before Trump), a republican president or Congress would quail and jibber under the endless assault of the outrage machine. A Bush or a McCain would waffle and kowtow to accusations of racism or sexism or just plain ism.  They were a hapless bunch and the Media and the dems knew it.  That’s why they are still hitting this play so hard.  It always yousta work.

We may be in a golden period. A place in time where the libs are still using tactics that no longer work but before they figure out that they actually do real harm to their case.  If this is the case then the trolling of Trump may actually be a very effective way of turning the public against the public positions of the left.  Someone like Colbert blowing a fuse on screen might have a truly revelatory effect if at the same time an unapologetic President is managing to get things done in Washington at the same time.

As the inimitable Vox Day has noted SJWs always double down. If that is the case, then there may come a point when even the somnambulistic public wakes up to the fact that the Left has become a shrieking steam engine whose relief valve has been overwhelmed in furtherance of doubling down.  And with any luck the Left will blow the whole thing sky high or run it right into a brick wall.  If so I can make one last steam analogy reference, “God He stole the handle and the train won’t stop going, no way to slow down.”